Complicated Shadows
by Anna Authorina
Summary: On both sides of every war, there are combatants, observers...and traitors. In the chaos of the First War, all bonds can be broken for a cause, and nothing is as important as survival.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Also, while names generally follow the Black Family Tree, dates may not. When canon is fuzzy or contradictory, GoF canon is, as a rule, what is followed in this story, since it begins with a scene from GoF. The dialogue of Bellatrix and the Barty Crouches in the prologue comes from pages 594-596 of the American hardcover of GoF and is in no way the property of the author.

Prologue: Over

_April 12, 1982_

"They say she laughed when she did it," a dark, stocky wizard muttered to his neighbor. "Bellatrix Lestrange. They say Alice begged her to stop, and she…" he trailed off, shaking his head in disgust and fear.

"I heard she meant to kill the boy," the pale neighbor answered. "What's his name – Neville? I heard she meant to kill him, too, but young Crouch stopped her."

The first wizard frowned. "If Crouch stopped her from killing the boy, why is he on trial with the rest of them, then?"

"Frank Longbottom kept mumbling…"

Though her blue cloak and hat covered her from hair to ankles already, Natalia tipped the latter further forward to shade more of her face from a crowd thick with Ministry employees. She would have worn a veil, if she could have, but that was not allowed inside the Ministry anymore. It was comforting to the populace to see tightened security measures at the seat of national government, and Barty Crouch, Sr. and Millicent Bagnold were very good at giving the public what it wanted.

The Aurors in place to control the group raised their wands, and the pale wizard fell silent as a hush descended over the assembly. Most of them had been attending trials regularly for several years, now, and the gesture John Dawlish and Albert Branstone were making meant only one thing. A few people in the line shifted as though to straighten it – _like schoolchildren_, Natalia thought – but no one spoke as the two wizards lowered their wands together and the courtroom behind them opened up to receive the two hundred people who would be allowed to watch the grand finale of the already infamous Crouch-Lestrange trials. For a long moment, no one moved.

Finally, a small woman wearing one of the vulture hats so often seen on older women in the past year stepped forward, followed by a similarly aged wizard who dwarfed her. The way Dawlish and Branstone ushered them through without a word confirmed them as Matthias and Augusta Longbottom. Were they receiving preferential treatment because of Frank and Alice, or had they arrived before dawn to guarantee their pick of seats at the condemnation of their son's torturers? Both options seemed plausible. Natalia only just stopped herself from adjusting her hat again. It would look suspicious, and suspicious minds caused mobs in an atmosphere like this. If Frank and Alice Longbottom could be destroyed beyond magic's ability to heal, no one was safe, and anyone a group perceived as a threat was in even more danger than everyone else.

She tilted her head back so Dawlish could see her as she approached the doors, and he winced slightly. John knew everything, of course, and had supported Barty Crouch Sr.'s suggestion that she stay well away from the Ministry until the furor over the trials died down. Though she knew it was inevitable that someone other than the two Aurors should hear who she was, she pitched her voice as closely to for their ears only as she could and gave her name with a Probity Probe pointed at her, as she was required to do by law before entering an official Ministry function. Illegal flasks of Polyjuice Potion had floated around too freely in the last year of the war. "Natalia Dolohova," she said, and was surprised when the words came out low and clear. She would not have imagined she could sound so calm under the present circumstances.

The mutters broke out immediately, of course, as someone heard what she had said and began to pass it back down the line. She even heard the witch directly behind her whisper, in a tone near hysteria, the words _Death Eater_, and another, whose gender she could not determine, mentioned a name that sounded an awful lot like _Annika Wilkes_. Natalia kept her gray eyes fixed on John's blue, refusing to acknowledge the whispers. There had been a time when it had been assumed that all Death Eaters were male, but Annika had proven the exception, and Bellatrix's arrest had caused mass paranoia. Everyone – witch or wizard – was subject to suspicion now, and none more so than relatives of proven or strongly suspected Death Eaters. Natalia thought she might be uniquely suited to conspiracy theories by virtue of having married two of Voldemort's followers, though. Even Bellatrix Lestrange and Annika Wilkes, known Death Eaters themselves, had only been married to one apiece.

John looked at her very hard for a moment before he nodded, evidently either deciding she knew what she was doing and could be trusted to do it or that there was nothing he could do to stop her. He was the wizard who had informed her of first her husband's arrest and then the arrests of Annika and Edmund Avery and the Lestranges; they were old friends, now. Natalia entered the courtroom without looking right, left, or directly at anything but the wall above the top row of seats. The scene was nightmarish enough without taking in the suddenly too-vivid colors of the dungeon and the sea of faces present to watch and, in all probability, cheer as four people – three of them people Natalia had known and cared for and for whom she still felt a reluctant affection - were sent to go mad and die in one of the most inhospitable locations known to wizardkind.

For some reason, perhaps reverence for the stiff figure of Augusta Longbottom and the specters of Frank and Alice, the crowd remained quiet as they filled the raised rows of seats. Natalia watched from the corner of her eye as Albus Dumbledore took one of the coveted benches beside the one Barty Crouch would officiate from. Other familiar faces came in – Cornelius and Helena Fudge, the strain and ambition in their faces forging one of the few similarities between them, had somehow managed to snag prime front-row seats below Crouch's to watch from, just enough of Narcissa's pale hair showed from beneath her deep hood to positively identify her and Lucius, and Walden Macnair even had the gall to come with his face uncovered and his new girl on his arm – but it was Dumbledore her eyes kept drifting back to. He looked somber, but not sad, as he sometimes did at trials, and Natalia knew some part of him was secretly happy. Dumbledore had been cozy with the Longbottoms, and Natalia suspected the great humanitarian, the chief voice against the use of the dementors to guard Azkaban, wanted nothing more than to see Barty Junior and the Lestranges rot in prison with their cousin Sirius Black and the spy Augustus Rookwood and Natalia's own husband, the murderer Antonin Dolohov. Her eyes drifted for a moment from the shining beard of the Hogwarts Headmaster to the empty seats soon to be occupied by Barty Crouch and, she suspected, his wife. So much for saintliness among the leaders of the light.

The staffs held by the unfamiliar Aurors flanking the inside of the door struck the floor three times, and the silence of the waiting line seemed indecently loud compared to what descended over the court. Though her first instinct was to shrink into a defensive huddle inside her robes, Natalia forced her spine to remain straight and refused to look, to think. She stared through the witches and wizards preventing her from seeing the opposite wall, keeping her chin low enough for the brim of her hat to shade her face and trying to remember who had composed the _Wizarding Suite._ Anything to keep from thinking about where she was, and why.

Just as the silence deepened to the point where Natalia thought her bones would soon shatter under its weight, the Aurors rapped out another three beats on the cold stone of the floor and raised their wands in a grim salute to each other and the wizard about to enter the presence of the court. The double doors opened for the second time, and Natalia found her gaze pulled, almost against her will, to the dark, severe-looking man in the center of a ring of Aurors temporarily doing duty as his bodyguards. Bartemius Crouch, Sr., Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Head of the Council of Magical Law, and probable future Minister of Magic, had arrived.

For once, Barty didn't bother to infuse his entrance with any more drama than his mandated late arrival guaranteed it. Striding quickly across the floor, he bundled the weeping witch on his arm up the narrow stairs so quickly Natalia wondered if her feet even touched the ground and lowered her, with a perfunctory show of gentleness, into her seat before taking his own. Without ceremony. Too gray for his age and thin for his height, he looked ten years older than he had during Antonin's trial, and something about the look on his face made Natalia wonder if some tiny, human fragment of him might have been knocked down a peg by the weeks his son had spent being roughly moved between interrogation rooms, prison cells, and one of the four chained chairs lined up in the center of the floor.

If it had or if it hadn't, she still felt no sympathy for him. His cause was admirable, his methods perhaps necessary, and he was probably the one man most responsible for her being alive to watch his son sent away with her friends, but she could not find it in her to forgive him for everything he had done along the way.

His wife, the dainty Cassandra Avery, was another matter. While her husband had aged under the strain of his duties during the war, Cassandra had withered away so slowly it was hard to remember the exact point it had become obvious she was ill, though Natalia was sure it had been before the news of her son's arrest, as the story went, threw her into a fit that landed her in St. Mungo's for most of the trial. Even from her post near the prisoners' door, Natalia could see that Cassandra's careful arrangement of dark blond curls looked too large for her head and that her once-pretty face was a shadow of itself. Her sobs, only slightly muffled by the handkerchief she held up to her mouth in her breakably thin hands, were the only sound in the courtroom, and Natalia thought they were worse than the silence had been. It was easy to feel sorry for her, especially when the blow had fallen so soon after she had assumed she and her family were finally safe.

"Bring them in," Crouch said without warning, his voice echoing through the room and shattering the tense silence. Natalia started in her seat, and she doubted she was the only one. Cassandra never stopped crying as the narrow door opened, admitting four humans and six dementors.

Natalia braced herself for it, but images still began flashing through her mind as the cold settled down on her. Her father's funeral. Annika, her face hard and driven, bundling up the bloody sheets of her bed, and Bellatrix's strained face the night they'd buried a friend, and Isobel, who she refused to think about. Antonin, walking in after the Prewett attacks that had changed everything, covered in blood. Barty Crouch's eyes. She gripped the edge of the bench hard, fighting off the alternating waves of terror and chest-clenching pain and the over-arching, crushing sense of hopelessness.

"…can't believe he'll imprison his own son," the witch beside her whispered to someone. Maybe even her. Strangers could become friends in a place like this.

She made herself open her eyes as Bellatrix sat down in the third chair, between her brother-in-law and Barty Crouch, Jr. Natalia supposed they had separated Bellatrix and Rodolphus intentionally, though Rodolphus hardly looked up to giving comfort by proximity, much less conspiring. His catatonic stare, even viewed from an angle, was unsettling. Rabastan looked as though he wanted to run, and Barty could not have looked more frightened if he'd been facing the dementor scheduled to take his soul. Bellatrix – her hair smooth and shining, her pale grey prison robes as tidy as if she were about to take tea – was the only one who seemed truly poised. She put her arms on those of the chair without being prompted, and the golden chains barely spoiled her dignity as they tied her in place. Though she knew it was no longer appropriate, Natalia felt a flicker of pride in knowing her.

A movement in the audience – why could she not stop thinking of it all as a game, a master play, instead of a real event? – caught her eye as Barty Crouch Sr. stood and looked down on the four prisoners, his hands clasped behind his back as of old. She was too far away to make out his expression, but she could imagine it being as usual, too. Just another day for the Head of the Council of Magical Law, the criminals behind another atrocity brought to justice. No matter that one of the criminals was his only son and heir; it was the criminal part that was important. He and Severus Snape could have bonded over degrees of cognitive dissonance – if Snape was, as Dumbledore seemed to think he was, sincere in his repentance.

"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law," he said, his orator's voice ringing out across the dungeon while remaining clear enough for every witch and wizard present to hear and understand, "so that we may pass judgment on you for a crime so heinous – "

"Father," Barty Junior tried to interrupt, "Father…please…"

" – that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," the elder Crouch continued, giving no sign he'd heard his son except raising his voice without changing his tone. "We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror – Frank Longbottom – and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – "

"Father, I didn't!" the nineteen-year-old boy screamed up at the high seat. Natalia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out his voice as he began to beg. "I didn't, I swear it, Father, don't send me back to the dementors – "

The polished mask of Crouch Sr.'s professionalism began to slip as he raised his voice still further. "You are further accused of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom's wife when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury – "

"Mother! Mother, stop him, Mother, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"

Even from her seat, Natalia could tell that Barty Crouch's face was reddening with fury. In the eleven years of his rise to power, she had never seen him lose even that much control, not to this point. Perhaps he was human. "I now ask the jury," he shouted, somehow still managing to insert a grand, oratorical edge, "to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban!"

As every other head in the room turned toward the jury, Natalia closed her eyes again. It was already done, and there was no need for her to see it. She could no longer remember why she had thought she had to be here for this in the first place. The applause of the audience mixed with the boy's screams for Cassandra in her ears, a whirl of sound that battered her and threatened to overwhelm her until the sound of Bellatrix's voice jolted her back into the courtroom in time to see the first woman initiated into Voldemort's inner circle on her own account and the first friend Natalia had made in the circle that had eventually killed her first husband shovel in the last of the dirt for her own grave.

"The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch!" Bellatrix called out, appearing to ignore the dementor at her shoulder. "Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!"

Bellatrix swept toward the door as the crowd began to get unruly, jeering and taunting her and her fellow prisoners. Rodolphus and Rabastan were already gone, never, Natalia was somehow sure, to be seen again by her. In her dementor-affected, disconnected frame of mind, she felt she could not let Bellatrix disappear in the same way. Without thinking, she stood and threw herself at the low barrier separating her seat from a drop to the floor and called out to her. "Bellatrix!"

For a moment, she thought her voice had been lost in the noise, but then she saw the tiniest flicker of surprise cross Bellatrix's beautiful face at the sound of her own name. She glanced sideways without pausing in her exit and caught Natalia's eye, and for a split second her expression was unreadable. Then, just before Natalia lost sight of her face, her upper lip curled in a familiar, disdainful sneer.

Natalia fell back into her seat as the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, the savior of Wizarding Britain, second in public regard only to Harry Potter himself, disowned his son and ignored his fainting wife. The noise of the crowd faded into the background as Barty Crouch Jr. was dragged screaming from the courtroom and Natalia went blank. She barely felt the cold of the dementors as they passed, barely heard Dumbledore's attempt to restore order as Crouch struggled to master himself. She could not take her eyes off the rough wooden door Bellatrix had vanished into before she could explain that this was not the way she had meant for it to be. She was falling backwards down the familiar tunnel of dissociation, watching the gap between door and wall narrow in slow motion as the last two dementors forced young Crouch to leave the room. It seemed it would go on forever, but finally, just before she hit the bottom, the door closed with a snap and it was over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Also, while names generally follow the Black Family Tree, dates may not. When canon is fuzzy or contradictory, GoF canon is, as a rule, what is followed in this story, since it begins with a scene from GoF.

Chapter One: Bellatrix Black

Part One

_July, 1975_

When Natalia had been a girl in London, all parties had been large parties. It was the way. Everyone who was anyone threw one, and everyone who was anyone went. She and her older sisters, Irina and Olga, had frequently slipped out of the children's parlor during their parents' parties to spy on the elegantly coiffed ladies in their jewels and distinguished-looking gentlemen in their dark dress robes, listening to the polite chatter as well as they could and counting down the days until they were sixteen and could put their hair up and be part of the merriment instead of hovering on the fringes of it.

Now, six months after her marriage, no one held large parties anymore, and they had not done so for almost three years. It was no longer considered safe to entertain anyone outside of one's closest circle. Not five years into a war.

Touching her chignon for the millionth time to make sure that all of her plain brown curls were still securely in it, Natalia took a glass of champagne from one of the revolving silver trays and did her best to blend in with the wall. No one held large parties anymore, but her husband did, and she was rapidly discovering that they were far more comfortable viewed from a distance. It had only been two months since her father-in-law had finally relented and allowed them to move into the Calais house, and Felix had been eager to show off his new home and his new wife to the Russian pureblood communities of France and Britain. It did not seem to have occurred to him that Natalia might not enjoy being shown off.

Since it was not her place to say so, though, being shown off she was. Or had been, until she had managed to slip away for a few minutes. It wouldn't last longer than that; she was the hostess. Best to make the moments of invisibility she had count. With an effort, she shut out the giggles of a pair of seventeen-year-old twins and focused on the details of the scene. Observing, making note of features of a room, made her feel calmer.

Guests, the witches among them in brightly colored dress robes that made her feel drab as a wren, milled around the high-ceilinged drawing room, continually forming and reforming knots of conversation and attempting to catch their fading images in gilt-edged mirrors enchanted to reflect only the light of the golden chandelier hanging from the exact center of the ceiling. Long, red velvet curtains – one set of which provided part of her current concealment – were tied back from the row of windows, black enough to be mirrors themselves as the night pressed against them, and low sofas placed at precise intervals against the walls provided seating for those who needed or wanted it. The champagne and hors d'oeuvre platters all shone bright silver and seemed to be holding to their revolving routes, providing the guests with refreshments if they so desired. Everywhere she looked, Natalia saw ripples of laughter and pleased faces, and the atmosphere was light and convivial as the usual skin of stiff manners they all lived by thinned for the party.

It was too early in the evening to say for sure, but it looked like her first attempt at planning and hosting an event on her own might be a success after all. The thought was almost enough to relax the hard knot of worry in her chest, which had so plagued her through the organization of the event that she had almost forgotten how much she hated the parties and balls of high society, with their endless repetition and constant threat of personal humiliation.

Scanning her guests once more, Natalia accidentally caught her mother's eye and watched as the older witch's expression at once became pinched. Without breaking off her conversation with Natalia's mother-in-law Xenia, Eudoxia crooked a finger, indicating that Natalia should come out.

She had known she couldn't remain out of the spotlight. With a slight, quickly repressed, sigh, she left her corner, keeping her almost empty champagne flute in her hand. Just having it would excuse her from taking another, and she had no intention of getting drunk tonight.

Eudoxia Samorodova had been beautiful, but the years and her five children had not been kind to her fine features and auburn hair. Only her piercing gray eyes remained much as they had been when she had been a belle, and they spent more time now narrowed in disapproval than looking up through her lashes. They were narrowed in such a fashion now, though not as severely as they might have been; as the least lovely of her children, Natalia had always been Eudoxia's favorite. She touched her own delicate glass to her lips before she spoke. "You should be more considerate of your guests, Natalia Alexandrovna," she said.

"Yes, _Maman_," Natalia replied automatically. It was, as all her children but Serge had learned at an early age, the only answer to give. As Olga said, what else was there to do but humor a witch who still used patronymics on a regular basis? She turned to her mother-in-law. "A good evening to you, Mother," she said, inclining her head.

"Thank you, my dear," Xenia said, half-lifting her own glass is acknowledgment. If age had robbed Eudoxia Samorodova of her looks, it had only intensified Xenia Agarunova's pale, wistful beauty. Natalia had it on good authority that poetry was still written about her in certain circles, now comparing her to a flower encased in frost or some such drivel. Her daughter-in-law lacked the sentimentality for that kind of thing, but could understand something of the sadness of it. "I trust you and Felix are settling in well?"

Natalia nodded noncommittally. She had disliked the idea of leaving England proper for Calais from the start, but it had not been her place to protest then and was not her place to complain now. "We have," she said. "Your elf has been most helpful. I don't think we would have fared half as well without her."

"She is my best," Xenia said with a trace of pride. "I am glad to have assisted you." She took a sip of her drink, providing the break in the conversation needed for a change of topic. "I have not seen Felix yet," she said. "His father sends his love, and I wished to convey it to him in person."

"I'm sure you'll see him soon," Natalia said diplomatically, though she was actually no such thing. Her husband, in a tendency she suspected had quite a great deal to do with having attended Hogwarts instead of a more severe school, was often…rebellious. He lacked proper regard for his mother and father, which was why they were alone together here instead of safely surrounded by their families in London. "I can't imagine where he is. I lost him in the crowd just after we came in."

Xenia smiled thinly, but before she could answer, a hand landed lightly on Natalia's shoulder. "And now he has found you," Felix said. Natalia did not have to look up to know he was offering their mothers the careless, insincere social smile he reserved for such occasions. He had carefully built up his reputation for irresponsibility, which made his agreement to marry her strange; she was not exactly a prime example of the kind of woman the _Prophet_ was accustomed to reporting him with. It was for this reason that Natalia assumed he had been given a choice between making a proper match with her and being disowned, which was no choice at all, but she had to give him credit for making the best of it. There was no clause in a marriage that said he had to be civil to her, but they managed to get along quietly enough. "Good evening, Mother, Madame Samorodova."

"Felix," Eudoxia said, inclining her head slightly.

"Darling," Xenia said, offering him her cheek. "Your father sends his love, and his regrets. He had business in Surrey."

"Of course," Felix said politely. Mikhail Agarunov had been against Felix setting up an independent household from the start, and had made no secret of it. Natalia suspected he thought Mikhail's failure to show was no more than spite. His relations with his father had apparently always been even more strained than those with his mother. "If you will excuse us, there are friends of mine present who I'd like Natalia to meet."

Natalia felt a stirring of unease at that. She had assumed that everyone here belonged to the families they knew, which meant she would have been at least acquainted with everyone present. A number of strangers was not something she had counted on. To please her mother, though, she covered her thoughts with a smile and murmured goodbye and allowed herself to be lead through the crowd, making polite stops along the way to chat with various groups.

In the sea of familiar faces, they were more than three-quarters of the way across the room before she spotted what she suspected were the friends in question. If she had circulated more, she would have noticed them before, but she thought it was just as well that she hadn't. She had been too nervous about this evening at the beginning to have handled it well.

Where everyone else at the party seemed part of a common group, this circle stood out. They were all young and uncommonly attractive, but others could say that. It was something in the way they all leaned toward each other, two standing while two sat, as though to be too far away from each other would deprive them all of oxygen. One glanced up, and she was startled to recognize the wavy golden hair and wide eyes of Bartemius Crouch's brother-in-law – Edward or Edwin or something like that. Even more surprising was the presence of a witch, a slight woman with long, shining dark hair and flowing green robes. As Natalia watched, her companion said something that made her laugh and offer him her hand to kiss.

"Your friends?" she said when Felix noticed where she was looking.

"My friends," Felix said. Natalia looked up at him, thinking she had heard an odd note in his voice as he had given them the title, but his expression was relaxed. At that moment, the witch looked up and spotted them.

"Felix!" she called out. Her eyes were dark and intent, though currently somewhat lightened with laughter, and her French lightly accented. English, by the sounds of it. "Come, join us!"

He obeyed at once, bending over to kiss her hand. Natalia stood straight, uncertain. The witch – who, up close, looked close to her own nineteen years – laughed again at the sight of her and put out her hand to shake, like a man. "Is this the wife I've heard talk of?" she asked, glancing up at Natalia's husband with an amused expression.

"She is," Felix confirmed.

"I see now why you've been in such a pleasant mood lately," she said. "I can only imagine how much your father must have paid you to marry her."

Felix looked stunned as the two standing friends began to laugh. Natalia's face burned at the insult. "I am Natalia Agarunova," she said, forcing her voice to remain level. "I fear we have not been introduced."

"So that's how it is," the witch mused. "Well, then. I am Bellatrix Black, and this is the poor boy who proposed to me before your husband could."

The indicated unfortunate, who happened to be her sofa-partner, bowed slightly without rising from her side. "I am Rodolphus Lestrange," he said. He had a soft, soothing voice that contrasted sharply with his wife-to-be's. Bellatrix's voice was pleasant, but had an edge to it. In fact, all of her seemed to have an edge to it. An odd match all around; the Lestranges did not need the Black money, having plenty of their own, and the English seldom openly arranged their marriages. "It is a pleasure to enjoy your hospitality, Madame. Allow me to also introduce our friends, Kenneth Wilkes and Edmund Avery."

Edmund, then. Edmund, not Edward or Edwin. It had been close. "It is a pleasure to meet you, and to have you as a guest in my home, Mr. Lestrange," Natalia said formally, bowing her head in acknowledgment. He had not been rude to her. "And your friends." She left Bellatrix out on purpose. To judge by her expression, the other woman realized that – and didn't especially care.

"Pleasure's ours," Edmund Avery said, giving her a smile she imagined was supposed to be charming. They were a pretty family, the Averys, and not above using that to their advantage. "So, Felix. Did you hear about Nott?"

Felix began to say "No, I – " just as Kenneth Wilkes started to interject that "Edmund, I don't think – " They both stopped, looking faintly confused. Finally, Felix gestured for Kenneth to continue. "I don't really think that's a proper topic of conversation at a party," Kenneth finished.

"Why not?" Bellatrix asked. "Merlin knows, Bartemius Crouch and his conquests are the only thing anyone discusses anywhere else."

Natalia repressed a shudder. It was true enough. When people were not discussing He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his atrocities, they were discussing what Bartemius Crouch was doing about them. Both conversations usually involved a great deal of blood and paranoia.

"Yes, but this is supposed to be a _party_," Kenneth pointed out. "Bartemius Crouch is not a celebratory topic."

"Are you saying the arrests of suspected Death Eaters are not to be celebrated, then?" Bellatrix countered. "You should be more careful, Kenny. Saying things like that might make some people…_suspicious._"

Natalia could tell she was not really accusing her friend of anything, but he flushed just the same. "I meant nothing of the kind, Bella," he said. "As you well know."

Amazingly, Bellatrix looked mildly chastised, but she rebounded quickly. "Well, it's of no import," she said dismissively, waving the matter aside. "They have no proof, and I highly doubt they will find any. Crouch knows that. He just feels the need to arrest someone every week so the public thinks he's doing something."

"Another tidbit from Barty, I suppose?" Felix said, now looking amused himself.

Bellatrix smiled, not pleasantly. "His infatuation with me has its uses."

The way they spoke, throwing about names she wasn't familiar with, was grating; it was as if she wasn't even there. "Barty?" Natalia asked, and immediately regretted it when she saw Bellatrix's expression change by a hair.

"Crouch's son, Madame," Rodolphus interjected before Bellatrix could embarrass her. "He fancies himself in love with Bellatrix."

"As do we all," Edmund Avery said fondly, moving as though to touch Bellatrix's hair before thinking the better of it. Natalia wasn't sure if that was because of her fiancé's presence or not; Rodolphus didn't have a pushover's air, but it seemed to her that Bellatrix still carried the wand in that relationship. "You're a lucky man, Rodolphus."

"He knows," Bellatrix said simply,

Natalia glanced around the room, searching for someone she and Felix really ought to speak to. Something about the way this lot interacted was off. Spotting no one of any import, she resorted to a tactic she usually avoided and lied. "Felix, we must go speak to Sophia Karsavina," she said. "Mother will have our heads if we do not."

Felix's mouth twisted with distaste. He had never had any fondness for Natalia's godmother. Because she was right, however, he made a slight bow to his friends. "I'm afraid Natalia is right," he said. "Excuse us."

When Natalia glanced back over her shoulder a moment later, Bellatrix was still watching her. When she saw that Natalia saw this, she smiled.

* * * * * * * *

It was a full week before the matter of Bellatrix Black came up again, this time over breakfast with Felix. As Natalia divided a croissant into smaller pieces with her knife, her husband tossed a small, stiff card over to land beside her plate. She glanced down at it. "What is this?"

"An invitation," Felix said. "From Bellatrix." He clearly did not think it possible that she might have somehow forgotten Bellatrix. This was the power Bellatrix held. "She wants you to come to tea with her tomorrow."

Natalia stared at the invitation as though it might morph into a serpent at any moment. "Why would she do that, Felix?"

"She wants to get better-acquainted with you," he replied. "Apparently, you made a good impression."

Natalia picked the card up cautiously. "I could not tell it."

"Oh, that," Felix said, shrugging aside Bellatrix's implication that no one would marry Natalia without being paid off. That it was probably true did not make it any more appropriate of a thing to say. "That's just Bellatrix. She was probably testing you. You mustn't pay it any mind."

Natalia looked at him coldly. "I _mustn't_?"

Felix's easy expression flickered. "You _mustn't_," he repeated firmly. "Natalia, Bellatrix is not a good enemy to make. Cross her once, and she'll eat you alive."

Natalia laughed shortly. "She is a girl," she said. "No older than we are."

"Insignificant," Felix said. "Bellatrix is different. She's…" He seemed at a loss for a word to describe her. "_Bellatrix_." As if that one word explained everything. "Go, Natalia. It's only tea, and perhaps a game of cards. If you bore her, she won't have you back, and you can survive an afternoon."

* * * * * * * *

She went.

The Black family was large, as such things were reckoned, and had more than one estate. Since her father, Cygnus, was not in line for the main house in London, having tea with Bellatrix lead Natalia to the family's house in Kent for the first time. It was a much pleasanter, less dramatic place than the London house she had attended a few parties at, with ample light and a garden. Cygnus Black had married Druella Rosier, and the Rosiers had their own standards of aesthetics.

To her surprise, she was ushered through the house by a silent elf and into the rose garden. A large table had seats for four, but was currently occupied by only one. Bellatrix Black didn't stand as Natalia approached her, but she did smile.

"Madame Agarunova," she said. "Or may I call you Natalia?"

"You may," Natalia said.

"Good," Bellatrix said. "Come, sit." She laid her hand on top of the chair beside hers. Natalia took it cautiously. Once she had settled in, Bellatrix gave her an unreadable look. "I hear you don't like me, Natalia."

"You seem to hear a great many things," Natalia commented, and Bellatrix laughed.

"That's true," she said. "I like to be well-informed." She turned her head, putting herself in profile. A ray of sunlight fell directly on her high cheekbone, turning her into a sculpture for a moment. "I did not intend to offend you that evening," she said. "Merely to irritate Felix. I've always found him amusing when he pretends to see the joke in things." She turned back to look at Natalia once more, the light shifting to her smooth dark-brown hair. Something of the mocking light Natalia had quickly come to associate with them had left her dark eyes for a moment. "Though you _aren't_ what I would have expected him to marry. He was always more the brainless-Gryffindor sort."

Natalia recognized this as the closest thing to an apology she was going to get. "Our parents proposed the match," she said. "It was hoped that I would be a good influence on him."

Bellatrix's eyes gleamed with amusement. "I wish you the best of luck with that."

Natalia glanced around the table. "Are you expecting other guests?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. Annika Rosier and Isobel Perkins. Kenneth and Edmund's girls, respectively, and Annika was my roommate at Hogwarts."

"I did have the pleasure." Natalia looked around in time to see the source of the new voice, a tall, angular girl with pale red hair to her shoulders. The new arrival glided across the space between them to grip Bellatrix's upper arms and kiss her cheek. As she straightened, she glanced at Natalia. "New meat, Bella?"

"Her name's Natalia," Bellatrix said. "Felix's wife."

"Really? I thought that was just a rumor." The girl sat down on Bellatrix's other side. "I'm Annika Rosier. Kenneth Wilkes' wife, once he works up the nerve to ask me."

"You could always ask him," Bellatrix pointed out.

"Evan would kill me the next time he came home," Annika said, shaking her head. "But the look on Kenny's face would be priceless. I'll think about it."

"Do it," Bellatrix ordered. "Evan won't kill you, because he knows I'd kill _him_."

Natalia laughed politely along with the others, though she privately thought these people were a little too cavalier about the idea of murdering each other. Bellatrix looked impatiently at the final empty seat and snapped her fingers for a house-elf. "Miss Perkins is running late," she said. "As usual. Go ahead and serve us our tea."

The conversation from that point was formal and somewhat stilted, which Natalia had a feeling was because of her presence and not Miss Perkins' absence. She was almost finished with her tea when the crack of a house-elf's Apparition made her jump. Bellatrix looked at it in annoyance. "What is it?" she asked.

"Miss Perkins is saying she is not coming, Miss Bellatrix," the elf squeaked. "She is having a meeting, Miss Bellatrix."

For a moment, Natalia thought Bellatrix was going to explode. Her dark eyes smoldered, and her mouth had drawn itself into a hard line. It was clear that she was not accustomed to not having her own way. After that moment, however, her features relaxed.

"They work her far too hard," she said. "Edmund ought to marry her and get her out of that office. Tell Miss Narcissa I want her to come down here, now. She can be our fourth."

"Yes, Miss Bellatrix," the elf replied, then vanished.

Annika looked across the table at Natalia. "Isobel Perkins is a reporter," she explained kindly. "When Maximus Quirke says 'levitate', Isobel says 'how hight'. Cissy is Bella's younger sister."

Natalia nodded. "I see. Thank you."

Annika smiled at her. "Bella never thinks it's worth her time to explain things to the new girls," she said.

"Why should I?" Bellatrix inquired flippantly. "If they're smart, they'll figure it out."

"Because it's good manners?" a cool voice asked. A girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen by the looks of her, took the final seat at the table, beside Natalia and as far away from Bellatrix as it was possible to be. Natalia assumed this was Cissy. Her coloring was almost pale enough for a Malfoy, but her features were Bellatrix's in softer miniature. "Miss Rosier," she said, inclining her head to Annika. Natalia, she ignored altogether.

"Cissy, this is Madame Agarunova," Bellatrix said. "She's joining us today."

Cissy nodded imperiously. Natalia wondered if there was something in the water here that promoted a high opinion of oneself. "A pleasure," she said, sounding bored. "I am _Narcissa_ Black." She put just a hint of emphasis on her first name. Apparently, she wasn't fond of her sister shortening it. "Who brought the cards?"

"I did," Annika said, reaching into her pocket and coming out with a fresh deck of playing cards.

Cissy nodded. "Good." She glanced at Natalia. "Make sure to keep an eye on Bellatrix," she said. "She cheats."

Bellatrix gave her sister a venomous look, but Annika clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "No hexing Cissy at the table," she chided. "It's vulgar." Bellatrix gave her a dirty look as well, but subsided. Natalia made a note of it. Kenneth Wilkes and his soon-to-be fiancée could both make Bellatrix hesitate. Interesting. "I'll deal."

By the time they finished the last hand and Cissy grew her pale eyebrows back, Natalia was surprised to note that the afternoon was half-over and that she was in one of the best moods she'd had since her marriage. As, with a trace of reluctance, she stood to go, Bellatrix grabbed her wrist.

"Friends?" she asked.

Natalia studied her for a moment: the arched eyebrows, the expression that suggested it did not much matter to her what Natalia said. It had been a good afternoon, but she still didn't know exactly what to make of her. She remembered Felix's words. "Of course," she said.

Bellatrix smiled slowly. "See you next Tuesday."


End file.
